İsmet İnönü coerces military into executing Menderes: junta leader

Modern Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's comrade-in-arms İsmet İnönü coerced the military into executing the deposed prime minister Adnan Menderes during the 1960 trial on Yassıada, according to Cemal Gürsel, the leader of military junta that led the country's first full-fledged military intervention.

“İnönü was trying to convince the National Union Committee and the judges in Yassıada that Menderes must absolutely be executed. I still believe a great injustice has been done," said Cemal Gürsel, who became Turkey's fourth President in the wake of the military intervention.

On May 27, 1960, the Army overthrew the then-Prime Minister Adnan Menderes. Menderes and his fellow Democrat Party members were put on trial on Yassıada, an island in the Marmara Sea. The pro-junta judges overseeing the case handed down the death sentenced for 15 leading party members, who were arrested with Menderes. The judges also ordered 12 life sentences and hundreds of long-term prison sentences.

According to the letter, Gürsel, who moved to İzmir after retiring as the commander of the land forces, was not previously informed of the May 27 coup, which paved the way for the Army to becoming a dominant force over the country's political system. “They immediately took me to Ankara to lead the military junta by the order of İnönü. Before meeting, a note from Inonu was submitted to me. In the note, İnönü was saying that it was necessary to persecute the leaders of the Democrat Party," he recalled.

In the letter, Gürsel also admitted that he believed Menderes and his co-defendants were treated unfairly by the junta.“But I could say nothing to halt pressure imposed on the judges by Inönü and Republican People's Party. I still have a bleeding wound in my heart," he said. “People will absolutely see one day in the future that democracy can never be based on execution."

Menderes and the two deposed ministers in his cabinet were found guilty of violating the constitution, embezzling money from the state funds and ordering the September events, which targetted primarily Istanbul's Greek minority on September 6-7,1955, and resulted in the death of 57 minority members.

The ousted leader was sentenced to death by hanging on Imralı island along with the then Foreign Minister Fatin Rüştü Zorlu and then Finance Minister Hasan Polatkan in 1961. Turkey's first non-military President Celal Bayar was among those who received the death sentence. But his execution was not carried out, because of his advanced age.